Study: Attention Can Relieve Itching
Itching is unpleasant and annoying, which is why many people try to distract themselves after, say, a mosquito bite. But what happens when you do the opposite? A new study provides answers.
"Don't think about it when something itches" – a new study calls this piece of everyday wisdom into question. Consciously directing one's attention toward a small skin inflammation – such as the kind felt after a sting or allergy test – may possibly weaken it and shorten its duration.
A research team led by neuroscientist Liron Rozenkrantz from Bar-Ilan University worked with a simple skin model: a histamine test similar to those used in allergy diagnostics. Histamine causes blood vessels to dilate and fluid to pass from the blood into the tissue, forming a small wheal and a reddening of the skin. Rozenkrantz describes the sensation as follows: "It's a bit like a mosquito bite. It burns a little, it itches – quite a lot, actually!"
The researchers describe it as an acute inflammatory skin reaction, because this histamine stimulus triggers redness and swelling, which correspond to classic signs of inflammation and subside again within 20 to 30 minutes.
In three experiments involving a total of 57 healthy volunteers, the researchers triggered such a small immune reaction. Participants went through it twice each time: they were either asked to distract themselves with simple tasks on a screen, or to consciously focus their attention on the sensations at the site of the inflammatory reaction.
"We wanted to know whether attention not only influences how strongly something feels, but also the inflammatory response in the body," Rozenkrantz told ARD's science desk.
"Bringing the Mind to Where It's Happening"
The results were clear-cut: in around 90 percent of participants, the inflammatory reaction – meaning the size of the wheal and the redness over time – was approximately one and a half times weaker when participants consciously paid attention to it. "The inflammatory response was more limited, better regulated, and healed faster," says Rozenkrantz. "And overall, the body required fewer resources."
For Eva Peters, a psychoneuroimmunologist, dermatologist and professor at the Charité, this is a remarkable finding: "That is a large, significant effect. We have, for example, conducted experiments in animals in the past where we see that stress doubles inflammation. So one and a half times less is an enormous difference."
Itch Signals Are More Than Just a Nuisance
At first glance, this seems paradoxical. Attention usually makes itching feel subjectively worse. So why should it simultaneously suppress the inflammatory response?
Rozenkrantz's hypothesis: unpleasant sensations are not merely bothersome warning signals. They provide the brain with information about what is happening in the body. "My interpretation is: the brain needs this information, this subjective experience, in order to regulate the immune response," says Rozenkrantz.
Peters explains: "In the skin, we have nerve fibers that communicate with immune cells. Some initiate inflammation, others help bring it to a stop. The brain uses these nerve fibers to help control how sensitively the skin reacts at a given site."
An inflammatory response is fundamentally important for limiting damage. However, a "good" inflammation is not the largest, but the most efficient one — running for exactly as long as it is needed. "We view inflammation as a kind of deviation from a state the body wants to return to," says Rozenkrantz. "The question is: how quickly can it get back there?"
**Numbing cream weakens the effect**
To better understand what exactly influences the inflammatory response, the team used a numbing cream in a further experiment — and the sensation of itching was significantly dampened.
"They were paying close attention, but the sensory information was practically gone," says Rosenkrantz. The effect of attention on inflammation became considerably smaller. This suggests that two factors work together: the itching itself is important, but so is the way we direct our attention. The latter additionally influences how efficiently these signals are used.
Researchers have suspected for decades that the brain and immune system cooperate in this way. "This is not an innovative idea — it's an age-old idea," says Peters. "But they have shown it for the first time very elegantly, focused very precisely on just one question: 'Attention — if I direct it, does it make a difference?'"
**What does this mean in everyday life?**
"As a scientist, I would say we obviously cannot simply apply this to everything," Rosenkrantz emphasizes. No one should forgo painkillers or fixate on every pain. "But as a person, I no longer immediately distract myself from unpleasant sensations. And as a mother: when my child falls down, we tend to distract them right away — 'Look at that pretty bird!' I don't do that quite so quickly anymore."
For Peters, the most important message is that distraction is not always automatically the best solution. "We often have this notion of 'just don't think about your problem and it won't be there' — and that is clearly not true," she says. "Think carefully about your problem and it will resolve more quickly — that is the answer we can take from this paper."
The study, now published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, does not claim that one can "think away" inflammation. But it suggests: attention influences not only what we feel. It may also play a role in determining how our body responds to minor inflammation — at least in the kind of acute skin models examined here.
